In Search of Brighter Stars
by Lauren Vork
Summary: An alternate timeline. What if Sirius escaped after four years in Azkaban in order to rescue and raise little Harry? PG-13 for language and some angst.
1. The Beginning of the End

In Search of Brighter Stars 

_AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yes I AM still alive and writing...during the summer, that is. There will be more of_ Encore, _in fact, there IS more of_ Encore _already written, but I've lost the disk and don't feel like rewriting those chapters. I'm looking dilligently for it, and will resume it with fervor once I find it. In the meantime, here's a story that hopefully will be short-ish and sweet. _

DISCLAIMER: That which doth belongeth to J.K. doth belongeth to J.K. That which doth belongeth to me belongeth to me. Thou shalt not steal without permission. Thou SHALT honor thy author and revieweth. - LV 

In Search of Brighter Stars - Chapter 1

The single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling flickered and popped as the little boy pulled the chain that controlled it. The bulb had burnt out, and he was immersed in darkness again. 

Harry Potter dropped to his knees on his bed, where he'd been standing in order to reach the lightbulb. He would be five years old in less than a week, and he'd be spending his birthday in the dark, with the spiders, here in the cupboard under the stairs at no. 4, Privet Drive. 

He'd been condemned by his Uncle Vernon to spend at least a week locked here as punishment for tipping Dudley's milk glass all over him at dinner. Harry hadn't been able to understand why his uncle had become so angry, since he'd been seated at the other side of the table and couldn't have touched the milk-glass. It seemed to have spilled of it's own accord, and it appeared that Uncle Vernon had been made far more upset because of this fact. 

Silent tears began to creep down little Harry's cheeks, and he wiped them away quickly. He didn't want to start crying so hard that the Dursleys heard him. 

He was afraid. Not of the dark or the spiders, and though he was afraid of Uncle Vernon, that wasn't really the fear that was eating away at him now. 

He was afraid of the future. He'd lived here for as long as he could remember and knew he'd be stuck with this miserable life for even longer still. When he was with the Dursleys, his life consisted of being, scorned, shunned, struck, accused, and insulted. When he was on his own, it consisted of boredom, loneliness, and darkness. 

What reason did he have to think that things would ever get better? The Dursleys _never_ changed the way they did things; he'd learned _that_ much about them by now. But even in the distant future, when he knew he would finally escape them, would there really be a shimmering path to a brighter life starting right outside their front gate? He'd always thought so, but now he found himself wondering if it was really true. Maybe there weren't any people who would love him, were no homes he'd ever be welcome in, and no new challenges to engage his eager mind. Maybe this was as good as things could get, and that's why they never got better. Uncle Vernon _had_ always told him he should be grateful for what he had... 

In his dark prison of a bedroom, Harry Potter softly cried himself to sleep. 

* * * * * 

Hundreds of miles away, Harry's godfather was trapped in his own small, dark, prison, but he wasn't crying. 

He was screaming. 

Sirius Black couldn't help but scream, because he'd just found the charred remains of his best friend lying in a pile of rubble, just a few meters from the cold body of his young wife. Or at least, that was how it seemed to him, for although it was at least the ten thousandth time he'd lived this memory, the dementors of Azkaban could always make old horrors feel new. But unlike the first time he'd witnessed this scene, the blessed numbness of shock was denied to him, leaving him with only raw pain, pain made more intense by years of guilt. 

The memory ended, and so did his screams. The dementor outside made a disgusting sound of satisfaction as it sucked at the air with the gaping hole that served as its mouth. It then moved away from Sirius's cell, on to its next victim. 

Here, in the highest security wing of the mighty fortress, each prisoner usually had a dementor or two outside their door at all times, so it had been several days since Sirius had been left completely alone like this. He could think clearly now, but he had to be careful; if his thoughts became too optimistic, he'd have half a dozen dementors outside his door at once. He'd worked hard to hold on to his sanity for these four years, and he couldn't take risks like that if he ever wanted to escape. 

And escape was what he thought about in moments like this. The dementors could read emotions, but not minds, so if he kept himself _angry_, he could make his plans in peace. He thought of why he was here and how he'd come to be here. He'd received no trial, he remembered, he'd simply been shipped away on Barty Crouch's orders without being given even thirty seconds to try and explain himself. 

"God damn self-righteous ministry bastards," he muttered to himself. He'd spent his whole life learning how to control his fierce temper, but in the four years he'd spent in Azkaban, he'd been forced to cultivate that rage all over again. It was the only way to survive, the only negative emotion that would nourish his spirit. 

Unfortunately, anger did not beget clear thinking. He looked at the door to his prison cell and wanted only to smash it down. Knowing that such an action would result in failure and bleeding knuckles, he examined the lock and hinge...for the millionth time. 

Dementors were not human and thus were not permitted to carry wands. For this reason, none of the doors in Azkaban were locked with magic, but they were charmed against being broken. Sirius had long ago discovered this while trying to unscrew the hinges on his cell door, using the edge of a coin as a makeshift screwdriver; upon being moved, the screws simply turned themselves back into their original position. 

If only he could escape from his cell when their were no dementors nearby! He could, in dog form, slip past them when they came to bring food, something he'd actually done once before, shortly after the beginning of his imprisonment. Since dementors couldn't see and had a difficult time sensing animal emotions, he'd made it as far the fortress's main gate before he'd been captured. This near victory might have given him some hope, but he realized that another failed escape attempt would result in nothing less than a Dementor's Kiss. 

What he needed was some time in which he could examine the front gate, which was Azkaban's only exit, and find a way to get past it. But that would only happen if he could open his cell door on his own, and the chances that he'd find a way to do that seemed more and more unlikely with each passing day. 

Sirius stopped fiddling with the door hinges and simply gave in to his anger. Pounding his fists against the door, he roared with rage. He cursed Peter Pettigrew. He cursed Voldemort. He cursed Barty Crouch and his friends on the outside who'd abandoned him to this. He cursed God (whom he'd spoken to more in the fast four years than ever before in his life, simply to curse Him), he cursed the world, he cursed himself. 

Only when he was finished did he cry. 

He collapsed against the door of his cell, his face pressed against the cold iron, his right arm sliding through the bars on the single, tall, thin window... 

...his right arm through the bars. 

Good lord, when had he become that thin? The bars were close together; when he'd arrived here, he'd only just been able to fit his hand and wrist between them. He'd been a great, muscular, bear of a man then, but now, what was left of him? 

Slowly, numbly, he began to untie the fastenings on the ragged remains of his gray wizard robes. He slipped the garment off his shoulders, something that no man in his right mind would do in the frigid air of Azkaban, and steeled himself for what he was about to see. For a moment, he couldn't force himself to look down, but an involuntary shudder of cold reminded him not to take his time with this. He looked down. 

Well, not only was his tan gone, but he was absolutely nothing but skin and bones. It wasn't a pleasant sight, but he knew it could mean freedom. As he pulled his robe back on, he thought of the iron bars on the main gate. Could Padfoot slip through them now? He'd only have one chance, he knew, and if he miscalculated... 

Was it worth the risk? Death was better than life in this hell, but he'd be facing something worse than death if he failed...unless he could kill himself before they caught him. 

He decided to go through with it. 

Largely as a result of his decision, Sirius Black did something that night that he hadn't done in as long as he could remember; he prayed. 


	2. Findings on the Beach

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"Mommy, look! A doggy!" 

Children loved animals. Molly McGinnis's children especially loved them, as Molly had learned over the years. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing wrong with this...except when your four-year-old was thrusting a katydid-filled fist in your face, or you found toads in your grand piano, or, as in this case, the children found a huge, black, and distinctly uncollared dog that looked as sickly as all the rabies in the world, but insisted on throwing caution to the wind, running up to pet it as though it belonged to the neighbors next door. 

Katie, the four-year-old, had cried out and gone running after the dog. Nathaniel, who was seven, had followed her. 

"Susan!" Molly cried to her eldest daughter, who was eleven, "Susan, don't let Katie touch the dog!" 

But the dog wasn't about to harm Katie, at least, not at this moment; it was laying almost motionless on the sandy beach, unconscious. The slow, faint movement of his rib cagee was the only testament to the fact that he lived still. 

"Is he dead, mommy?" Katie asked of her mother, her eyes wide with horror. 

Molly crouched next to the dog. "I don't know, sweetie...he looks awfully sick." She touched the animal gently and he responded with a faint whine. "We should go and get your father." Charlie, Molly's husband, would know how to care for the dog, she knew. He wasn't a veterinarian, but he'd grown up on a farm, so he knew a lot about helping sick animals. 

No sooner had Molly made the suggestion than Katie was racing up the hillside to the McGinnis's beachside home, her siblings following close behind. Molly started off after them, and reflected, as she watched Katie running uphill as fast as her legs could carry her, that she couldn't help but admire the child's compassion. 

And her energy. 

* * *

Opening his eyes, the black dog whimpered. He was weak, sore, and waterlogged, but he felt triumphant in spite of his physical condition; he'd made it. He raised his head slowly, saw that there was not a soul in sight, and in a moment, the dog was gone and Sirius Black was sitting on the beach in his place. 

It was an unnecessary risk, he knew, to resume his human form right now, but it felt too good. The hell was over, and it was like waking up after a bad dream...or thawing out after being frozen. 

Yes, Sirius thought as he stretched out his limbs to let the morning sun warm him, it was exactly like thawing out after being frozen. Bad dreams, on the other hand, were different; you never woke up after a bad dream and wondered if the world you found yourself in was the real one. But Sirius couldn't believe his nightmare was over, for his prison had become his only reality in the last four years. You might lose your sense of reality in Azkaban, but you never lost your sense of the time passing, your sense of the monotony and the fact that your ordeal wasn't about to end anytime soon. Relief seemed impossible after that. 

Sirius was interrupted from his thinking by the sound of voices in the distance It wasn't long before he realized he'd made a mistake; he had company. 

Five people were rushing down the hillside towards him, a man, a woman and three young children. They were dressed in muggle clothes and appeared to be a family. Sirius realized, too late, that they'd seen him before he'd seen them. He also realized that they were regarding him with confused stares and were also most definitely headed in his directed. 

He glanced down at his ragged wizarding robes, imagining what the rest of his appearance must be like. How would he explain himself? He could barely sit up and felt extremely woozy, so simply running for it was out of the question... 

Soon, the family had reached him. The woman approached him first, and crouched down next to him, regarding him with a confused gaze. 

"Do you speak English?" she asked him. She was very short and of slight build, neither fat nor thin, and had shoulder-length brown hair. Her eyes were wide and inquisitive as she looked at him, but her gaze was warm. 

"Yes," Sirius answered impulsively, and immediately regretted it. _Damn...idiot!_ he cursed himself. If he'd just kept his mouth shut, he wouldn't have had to explain anything. 

"How did you get here?" the woman asked him. 

"I..I swam," Sirius answered stupidly. 

"Swam..?" she murmured, "well...from where?" 

Sirius was unable to think of a satisfactory answer and just sat there dumbly for a long moment. 

"Do you remember where you came from?" the man prompted him, giving Sirius an idea. 

"No," he said, trying to sound confused and finding it extremely easy, "I don't remember...anything." 

He saw the couple exchange a meaningful glance, as though asking each other, "Well, what do we do now?" 

"So where's the dog?" 

The sickly black dog had been forgotten by all. All, that is, except Katie, who momentarily diverted the little crowd's attention away from Sirius. She had been searching for the animal all this time, and was now standing with her fists on her hips and a scowl on her round face as she demanded to know what had become of him. 

Molly McGinnis sighed. "I don't know, sweetie..." she started, but saw that her daughter, still scowling resolutely and shaking her head at the seashore in confusion, would not be appeased by such an answer. In desperation, she turned to the soggy, ragged man sitting in the sand. 

"Did you see a black dog anywhere around here?" she asked him, but Sirius shook his head. "Maybe he ran away, sweetie," Molly suggested to her daughter. 

Katie was staring suspiciously at Sirius. Pointing to him, she said, "He was sitting _right there_!" 

"Katie," Charles said softly to his daughter, placing his hands on her small shoulders, "Maybe the dog was further down the beach than you thought. That, " he directed his voice to Molly as well, "would also explain why you didn't see this man before." 

"He was right there, " Katie repeated. Sirius strongly felt that, for a four-year-old, she could put quite a tone of menace into her voice. 

Susan grasped her little sister's hand. "Katie, how 'bout we go look for the doggy, okay?" 

"Yes," Charles agreed, somewhat distractedly, "Go look for the doggie, kids, and we'll..." he paused, looking at Sirius, "We'll see what we can do for this fellow." 

Begrudgingly, Katie went with her sister, Nathaniel following close behind as they headed down the shore. 

Sirius followed the children with his eyes for a long moment, something akin to wonder lighting his face as he watched them trotting merrily down the shore of the beach. After a moment, he turned back to Molly and founding her looking not at her children, but at him. She smiled, and offered him her hand. 

"Can you walk, sir?" 

Sirius took her hand and allowed her to help him to his feet, but as soon he stood, his legs failed him and he began to collapse. Molly caught him easily, and with her husband's help, supported him as they made their way up to the house. 

She whistled. "You've surely been through something rough, friend." 


End file.
